Dreamhost Review

Largely known for making light work of web hosting, DreamHost provides business organizations with cool features that include a custom dashboard, a one-click automatic WP install, automatic WP updates, unlimited storage and bandwidth and free SSDs, making your site run 200% faster. It is very popular among WP users, powering over 600,000 WP websites and blogs.

In addition, setup is given absolutely for free, with the vendor even offering a free domain. You can also avail of other features, which include cloud storage, an affiliate program that hands out cash rewards for referrals and a free domain name for new accounts. DreamHost’s shared hosting service works great for those on a budget as it runs on Debian Linux. Its VPS and dedicated hosting on the other hand, offer free hosting to United States-based nonprofits and charities.

If ever users experience downtime, the platform offers a free day’s hosting credit for every hour of downtime. Security is tight, with the service’s data centers equipped to survive disasters such as fires and earthquakes, this is apart from the system’s three-megawatt power supply backup. With these features, you are assured that your website is not only secure, but running at all times.

All these are nothing if not backed by excellent support, which is just what the service offers. Support can be quickly accessed through live chat, taking but a few seconds to get a response. It is evidently not outsourced like most and is available 24/7.

Dreamhost can be availed at different pricing models starting at $8.95. For those who want to evaluate the service first, a money-back guarantee is also available.

DreamHost offers a 100% uptime guarantee across its shared, VPS, and dedicated hosting plans. If a fault at DreamHost causes your website, email, database, webmail, SSH, or FTP to go down, you’ll get a credit of one free day’s hosting for every hour of downtime.

DreamHost doesn’t publish any data about uptime on its website, but it maintains a detailed status blog at dreamhoststatus.com. DreamHost’s two data centers in Los Angeles have provision of three megawatts of uninterrupted power supply. Both facilities are equipped to handle earthquakes and fire.

Customers can manually back up their account data (including mailboxes) and websites from their control panel.

Shared Web Hosting Plans:

VPS Hosting Plans:

Dedicated server plans:

DreamHost does not provide CPanel or Plesk. The company offers a completely custom control panel that been created in-house.

Log in to DreamHost’s control panel to get access to everything regarding your hosting account, from billing, ImageMagick, Django, and account details to email accounts and MySQL.

Though the CPanel is capable, people used to Cpanel need to re-learn a new administration system to perform simple tasks such as increasing the php memory limit or accessing phpmyadmin.

Pros

• Plenty of security features
• Extensive domain-management tools
• Generous money-back guarantee
• Cloud storage plans
• Reliable uptime and stability
• User-friendly control panel
• Top customer service
• Value for money

Cons

• No site builder
• Initial setup is slow
• Long waiting time for help chat
• Does not have Windows servers

DreamHost doesn’t provide telephone support, but for a small premium you can have a staff member call you. The extra fee also includes live chat support. Otherwise, all support is through email and/or tickets.

Customers can also get answers to technical questions in a wiki (which acts as a knowledge base) and forum on the DreamHost support portal, as well as on the network status blog. What’s more, the vendor keeps customers up to date with a regular newsletter.